What Apple could gain from dropping AT&T outright.

[Alex]

Apple has a clear way to drop AT&T and some clear incentives to do so.

1. In any AT&T exclusive market Apple already has penetration and AT&T will have to support those existing handsets and customers.

2. Dropping AT&T completely helps Apple get a better deal with a competitor and put pressure on AT&T in competitive markets and exclusive markets.

3. In exclusive AT&T markets with no Apple upgrade path AT&T will face the wrath of their iPhone customers and lobbying for real competition and the loss of exclusivity.

4. Apple can gain support from the public by saying that metered billing was simply not compatible with Apple standards for the value and quality of experience or with Apple’s expectation for innovation.

5. Apple gains goodwill from the public and investors for standing up to a much hated company. Really the government ought to kick the shit out of any company the public hates, a company hated by the public is a clear sign of a public menace.


Part of what AT&T is doing is trying to weasel in the metered pricing for DSL or broadband. Remember paying hourly for CompuServe? This would be much worse. Apple could gain at AT&T’s expense and for all the right public service reasons.

Sorry about this being in the wrong area it belongs in the unrelated catagory unless Apple (now at E3) is another Game platform formally now.

[beez1717]

I personally think that apple should just drop ATT and go with verizon. I know that although Verizon may put more restrictions on the network, that people would get a better network and when things worked it would work much better. I hope apple sees just how much people hate ATT.

[drhydralisk]

I personally think that apple should just drop ATT and go with verizon. I know that although Verizon may put more restrictions on the network, that people would get a better network and when things worked it would work much better. I hope apple sees just how much people hate ATT.

I will never use an iPhone. As a developer, if I ever got off my lazy ass to develop an application for for smart phones I would like not to have to buy a Mac, so Android all the way (and I would prefer developing in Java as opposed to Objective C).

[tibbon]

Keep in mind that AT&T has had to work really hard to learn how to deal with the quirks and massive data usage of the iPhone. You should have seen the stuff that they had to pull out to keep it working flawlessly at SXSW. I've had the iPhone since it came out (and now a 3GS) and I do hate AT&T, however I know that suddenly throwing it to another carrier might cause just as many problems. AT&T's been doing this for 3 years now. I'm not honestly convinced that verizon would do remarkably better out of the box.

[Phopojijo]

Verizon claimed that the reason why Apple was with AT&T exclusively is because they get a cut of the monthly phone bill (remember iPhones could only choose plans "made for them" back in 2007?). They asked the same from Verizon (who declined and disclosed it with the press) before they approached AT&T.

AFAIK it's still true as well.

So yeah -- why would Apple add other carriers to promote competition? They're making more money with exclusivity. That's all they care about.

[Carlos]

Keep in mind that AT&T has had to work really hard to learn how to deal with the quirks and massive data usage of the iPhone. You should have seen the stuff that they had to pull out to keep it working flawlessly at SXSW. I've had the iPhone since it came out (and now a 3GS) and I do hate AT&T, however I know that suddenly throwing it to another carrier might cause just as many problems. AT&T's been doing this for 3 years now. I'm not honestly convinced that verizon would do remarkably better out of the box.
Ladies and gents, this is why they're not going to go to another service provider.

It would cost them millions just to get everything working for iphone specifically.

[Alex]

I was reading somewhere that Apple and Google have taken steps to have mobile phones that don't need mobile carriers. If that is not something they will implement it is quite a bargaining chip. This came up in the context of their teleconferencing app on iPhone 4. Apparently at start up it requires the carrier for a few trivial steps but soon after is carrier free. Of course this has to be talking about modes that are not just Wifi dependent. The concept of being mobile carrier free or having a phone that is mobile carrier free is interesting because phone companies tend to be both ISP and carrier so what is implied here is that we have a way of cutting them out of the loop. I don't see them competing enough and I take it as real that we are a decade behind because of their profit taking and non investing. If not this then at least let Google/Apple/MS or a IT consortium form to provide the public an alternative.

Also Apple and Jobs are not just about getting money or being 'evil,' he is a self described "tool maker," and as you know he doesn't want his tools compromised, they have even more reason to dump AT&T than they did Adobe's Flash. He doens't want stuff the undermines the performance or value proposition of his products and does not want to be beholden.

There is no such thing as abusing the connection there is only not building enough capacity and even where they were trying with obsolete wireless technology they should have been bringing newer less limited stuff on board faster.

Right now the idiotic press is trying to say that Sprint and T-Mobile are taking a big risk by not ripping people off with metered plans. We as a people are taking a big risk by allowing local monopolies or places that are only served by one or two carriers. When carriers try to say its not worth their investing without a monopoly they need to be replaced by a municipality because the tech they are using tends to be generic and can be deployed by a nuts and bolts municipality which can then hire the displaced employees.

[gt500drummer]

Whasup? Hey how are you all doing? I think Apple would gain from their own service. If Apple had their own cell service, it would either bomb or be the hottest service for twenty years.

[downphoenix]

Im sure Apple would have done this already if mass market penetration was their game.

It's not though.

Apple has a different philosophy over most companies. They would prefer a smaller base of customers that pay them more money per product than trying to sell as many as possible. Their goal is not to sell quantity of product but to increase profitability. Sometimes trying to penetrate as much of the market as possible is not the best way to tackle the market.

Going to Verizon or any other carrier for that matter is not in Apple's gameplan. They have a great exclusivity contract with AT&T, and Apple risks a 9 figure Lawsuit if they break out of that contract early, especially given that AT&T recently cut them a sweet deal for the Ipad's 3G Internet plan. Apple will try to bend the rules a bit when possible if its good for their bottom line, but I don't see them dropping AT&T anytime soon. As far as other carriers not being able to handle the Iphone, that's BS. Statistics show that Android phone users on Verizon use more data than Iphone users on AT&T on average, and Verizon's data network is just fine, they have the fastest data speeds of all the carriers, and is just barely edged out by Sprint for Data Connection Reliability. AT&T is the worst in Data Connection Reliability, and was only a few kbps faster than Sprint, Verizon was over 100kbps faster than both, the figures for Reliability I saw showed Sprint averaged 90%, Verizon 89%, AT&T 76%. LMAO

[Alex]

"Their goal is to increase profitability,"- that's like saying their goal is to increase weakness. I think companies that think in terms of profit need a bullet to the head- the concept doesn't compute for me. What is profit for, to pay off useless shareholders? To me the only possible goal is revenue growth and share growth. Profit orientation is for morons. Its kind of like saying their goal is to get more food to make fat people even fatter. I just don't get it. I guess its the leftist in me that thinks profit is a crime. If Apple were wholly employee owned (with management, save for founders, and board members and outsiders having no possiblity of owning any stock) then I would get the profit concept a little better.

Brad Boad talked about Apple making moves that could cut the phone companies out of the loop all together. That's what I want to see. The public needs to begin to understand that we don't need to pay these toll roads that want to make money off of censorship and nullifying our political representation with sponsorship. Apple needs to cut them out of wireless so that wireless can't be the next lobbying enabler. The telcos and Google think people want to get ads on their business phones and not have a choice about it and pay high rates on top of interuption and aggravation. We should just be able to trash can them over this.

[TheGamingGEEK]

In my personal opinion, Apple should make their iPhone the same way HTC (And google) Make the Nexus One (Unlocked) Therefore anyone could use Apple iPhone with their SIM Card. However, The objective of almost any company is to make money...Therefore making it exclusive to AT&T, making the iPhone more profitable. I'm not saying Apple Computer is "Evil" but remember they have a Company and a company needs money to work properly...Thats just my two cents.

[rezonant]

Apple already offers unlocked iPhones, they are just really expensive.
Here's an article from 2008 about them offering the unlocked 3G officially. (http://www.t3.com/news/apple-selling-official-unlocked-iphone-3g?=36806)

[downphoenix]

Sprint and Verizon do not use sim cards, and an Iphone will not work without one, thus why there's never been an Iphone on either network. They ARE supposedly working on a cdma Iphone, but this isn't going to be on Verizon, rather you can expect to see it in a popular cdma area outside of the US, like China, Apple stands to see much more growth there.

And they won't announce a Verizon iphone until it passes through FCC certification, which can take usually at LEAST 2 months more before it will be released to the market.

And if Apple was to stop being exclusive (which they have no immediate plans to be if their various exclusivity contracts with other carriers throughout the world is any indication) then I doubt they would just rest on their laurels with Verizon, as Sprint and T-mobile together have approximately the same number of subscribers as AT&T.

and if the rumors of their merger were to come true during the penetration of the 4g services, then it becomes a whole new ballgame, as the 2 companies combined would have the largest 3g network, and they would have the most 4g spectrum.

[Alex]

In my personal opinion, Apple should make their iPhone the same way HTC (And google) Make the Nexus One (Unlocked) Therefore anyone could use Apple iPhone with their SIM Card. However, The objective of almost any company is to make money...Therefore making it exclusive to AT&T, making the iPhone more profitable. I'm not saying Apple Computer is "Evil" but remember they have a Company and a company needs money to work properly...Thats just my two cents.

Choosing profit in the midsts of real competition is like cashing in you chips and retiring, its also cowardly. Its like stopping to graze in the middle of a freeway so that you can be run over. If Apple thinks it can get away with that it will be run over and it will deserve it. Probably Apple does not have that perspective.

[downphoenix]

Its Apple's game, always has been. Different companies have different business philosophies. Microsoft's goal was to penetrate as much of the market as possible, an expensive and arduous task, but can over time net a strong, sustained gain. Google maintains many of the same philosophies as Microsoft, but they beat them in their own game of market innovation.

Google beat them out the door in mass market cellular penetration, so Microsoft has invested a sum estimated to be $1 billion vesting into the Windows Phone 7 platform. They know if they do not make this big push, that they will miss the boat at making mass market penetration in the phone market. Phone users will get to benefit with 3 extremely good phone OS choices, between Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

HP wasted its money into Palm too late sadly. This holiday season was quite literally the last chance they had at hitting the market and it's been blown. After a short stint with WebOS, I fully expect them to make the move to Microsoft.

Nokia will sooner or later realize that people are just NOT interested in their symbian and meego offerings. Their phone sales have taken a nosedive. It is a shame because in terms of the hardware, Nokia arguably makes the best devices on the market. However, their insistance in their proprietary platform and their strange strategies in selling the phones will eventually see them convert to Android with some key enhancements of their own.

RIM aka Blackberry is a dying breed. The writing is on the walls for them. A large reason why they have been a big hit is due to the free or cheap Curves and Pearls. Big sales of Iphones and Androids are proving that customers are willing to pay more for phones. Blackberry will soon enough lose grasp on the consumer market due to underpowered, complicated phones and become a niche for business customers, a Niche that may not remain stable due to efforts of Google and Microsoft.

Apple will not be the market leader for long, they will be in a comfortable 3rd place. They will maintain a solid base with AT&T and see small but steady growth. They will ride out their contract, roll out their Verizon Iphone with LTE support, and will phase in Sprint and T-mobile versions as long as they get agreeable arrangements with the respective companies.

Apple's shtick is not, and never was, mass market penetration. It may have looked like that with their huge hit with the Ipod, but the real reason behind that is because their barely was a market for that stuff back then, Apple chose the right time to jump in. They got into cellphones a little late due to the strength of Blackberry and Nokia, and they made great progress against them, but not a resounding victory like the Ipod.

[downphoenix]

Its Apple's game, always has been. Different companies have different business philosophies. Microsoft's goal was to penetrate as much of the market as possible, an expensive and arduous task, but can over time net a strong, sustained gain. Google maintains many of the same philosophies as Microsoft, but they beat them in their own game of market innovation.

Google beat them out the door in mass market cellular penetration, so Microsoft has invested a sum estimated to be $1 billion vesting into the Windows Phone 7 platform. They know if they do not make this big push, that they will miss the boat at making mass market penetration in the phone market. Phone users will get to benefit with 3 extremely good phone OS choices, between Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

HP wasted its money into Palm too late sadly. This holiday season was quite literally the last chance they had at hitting the market and it's been blown. After a short stint with WebOS, I fully expect them to make the move to Microsoft.

Nokia will sooner or later realize that people are just NOT interested in their symbian and meego offerings. Their phone sales have taken a nosedive. It is a shame because in terms of the hardware, Nokia arguably makes the best devices on the market. However, their insistance in their proprietary platform and their strange strategies in selling the phones will eventually see them convert to Android with some key enhancements of their own.

RIM aka Blackberry is a dying breed. The writing is on the walls for them. A large reason why they have been a big hit is due to the free or cheap Curves and Pearls. Big sales of Iphones and Androids are proving that customers are willing to pay more for phones. Blackberry will soon enough lose grasp on the consumer market due to underpowered, complicated phones and become a niche for business customers, a Niche that may not remain stable due to efforts of Google and Microsoft.

Apple will not be the market leader for long, they will be in a comfortable 3rd place. They will maintain a solid base with AT&T and see small but steady growth. They will ride out their contract, roll out their Verizon Iphone with LTE support, and will phase in Sprint and T-mobile versions as long as they get agreeable arrangements with the respective companies.

Apple's shtick is not, and never was, mass market penetration. It may have looked like that with their huge hit with the Ipod, but the real reason behind that is because their barely was a market for that stuff back then, Apple chose the right time to jump in. They got into cellphones a little late due to the strength of Blackberry and Nokia, and they made great progress against them, but not a resounding victory like the Ipod.

[Alex]

What about clear wire they are the only ones that apparently don't have a bread and butter mobile minutes and won't be hurt by the that bread and butter becoming defunct. I don't buy that stuff about Apple not wanting share or to go verticle. They just launched Apple TV and Game Center. Apple TV is clearly a microconsole ala Onlive. Apple TV also includes Netflix Instant. Apple already has Rhapsody for music. Apple can now offer evertything for all their platforms for a bundle price. Every company will be forced to follow and differientiators be refinements and making sure offerings are tottaly ad free with good privacy and anonymity.